Living Proof

It's 1988. Dr. Dennis Slamon (Harry Connick Jr.) is researching a breast cancer gene treatment at the UCLA Medical Center. Jamie McGrath (Amanda Bynes) is an English Lit student who gets the assistant job that nobody wants. Slamon lacks the funds for research and the time for his family. Lilly Tartikoff (Angie Harmon) insists on fundraising for Slamon. As he works on the treatment, the movie also follows several women who discover they suffer from breast cancer.

This is based on the true story of the struggles to get approval for the breast cancer drug Herceptin. While it provides a few interesting insights into drug trials, the central story isn't actually that dramatic. The most compelling parts of the movie are some of the great actresses doing the cancer patients.

This is the true story of the first Doctor to find a treatment for breast cancer that did not involve killing cells in the body (radiation/ chemo). This determined physician - Dr. Dennis J. Slamon - and his vision for a new treatment and those who believed and supported him in his work is so movingly told. The producing team (Chicago, Hairspray) including Renee Zellweger, and the incredible cast of actors, and wonderfully directed - you know this film was a true labor of love. It shows in every minute of the film. I missed this on TV and just happened upon this at the Blockbuster and I was blown away it is the best movie I have seen this year. Like others I wept at times with sorrow and other times with joy. Thank you to all that made the showing of this story possible.

A surprisingly good movie. Surprising, partly because it was Harry Connick Jnr, partly because of the low budget, partly because the subject matter could have so easily lent itself to schmaltz.

Harry Connick Jr turned it a great performance. He somehow added the right amount of nerd to give a realistic feeling performance. The director triumphed over the budget, creating a compelling movie. Particularly striking was the effective deployment of a disused cliché, the white fadeout. The treatment was sensitive, with a true feel for the complexities involved in such a life and death area.

The film is not easy to watch in places, the ending is somewhat patronizing, but overall, an enjoyable and enriching experience.

Very good true story but the treatment of the religious type is too pronounced. The music is terrible.

The movie was worth watching and was consciousness-raising in ways. Its depiction of the steps involved in FDA approval of drugs was informative. But the unrealistic parts of the movie made me wonder whether other parts of it were in fact accurate. For example, the cleavage shown on women said to be stage-four breast-cancer victims was laughable. And the scenes involving people undergoing chemotherapy or who had recently undergone chemotherapy were also suspect. Their full heads of hair did not appear to be wigs. My overall impression was that whoever was in charge of the details of the filming knew very little about breast cancer.